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Hauntings
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, October 26 at 8:30 pm; and Wednesday, October 31 at 11:30 pm
STATEWIDE – Just in time for Halloween, this week’s episode of State of the Arts explores the art of the grotesque, the macabre, and the simply spooky. Hauntings features an orchestra playing live scary music as a score to the 1931 classic film “Frankenstein,” the craft of the theatrical mask maker, a tour of cemeteries and tombstones, and the Jersey Devil making an appearance in a ballet. The program airs on Friday, October 26 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, October 31, at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this year. The series has earned 28 Regional Emmy Awards, including New York Emmy Awards in 2007 and 2005, and Mid-Atlantic Emmys in 2007 and 2006.
• Frankenstein
The classic 1931 horror/monster film Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, unlike the later Karloff sequels, did not have a musical score. David Wroe, Music Director and conductor of the Westfield Symphony Orchestra, saw an opportunity. Wroe, a resident of Springfield, arranged well-known scary music for orchestra and performed it live during a screening of the original film. The evening includes music by Saint-Saëns, Liszt, Prokofiev and Strauss. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz goes to the theater at Kean University in Union for a fright-filled Halloween evening performance. The program includes interviews with Wroe and clips from the film.
• Blood and Roses
This October, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in Madison, New Jersey, is presenting Blood & Roses: The Henry VI plays by William Shakespeare, three plays about England's War of the Roses condensed into one highly-charged and thrilling evening of political theatre. State of the Arts producer Christopher Benincasa goes behind the scenes of this epic production; talks with Bonnie J. Monte, the theatre’s artistic director; and get a first-hand look at how the horrors of war are brought to the stage through innovative and often gruesome set design. Viewers will be treated to the process of casting replicas of heads – using real people as models – that will be the stand-ins for severed heads placed on pikes after battle. Blood & Roses: The Henry VI plays by William Shakespeare runs from October 9 through November 11, 2007.
• Cemeteries and Tombstones
Anyone who has ever wandered through a cemetery knows that tombstones can tell you more than just when people lived and died. In a new book, anthropologists and historians Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied give a sweeping tour of New Jersey’s burial sites from the 17th century through today. From early Native American memorials, through the colonial and Victorian eras, to the truly unusual (such as the life-sized Mercedes-Benz headstone in a Linden cemetery), the authors use grave markers to give a fascinating account of the state’s history. New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones: History in the Landscape will be published by Rutgers University Press in February 2008. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner takes a tour with the authors, visiting colonial-era headstones with images of skulls, hourglasses, and crossed bones illustrating the brevity of life; and a Victorian cemetery decorated with obelisks, pillars, and ornate statuary revealing the elaborate culture of the time. Richard Veit is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University, and the author of Digging New Jersey’s Past: Historical Archaeology in the Garden State. Mark Nonestied has been a staff member of the Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission since 1991. He currently serves as the Director of Exhibits and Programs at a historic site in Piscataway.
• The Beast
State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz goes behind the scenes at the American Repertory Ballet’s (ARB) production of the classic fairy tale, “Beauty and the Beast.” Choreographer and ARB Artistic Director Graham Lustig created this major work for children and families, “Beauty and the Beast: A Gothic Romance.” Based on Madam Le Prince De Beaumont’s story, Lustig has set the ballet in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey in the 1820s with the Jersey Devil as the beast. The ballet is set to the string music of Rossini, written in the 1820s when Rossini was 12 years old. Lustig says that “Beauty and the Beast” is the classic fable exploring the contrast between inner and outer beauty. “Beauty and the Beast: A Gothic Romance” will be performed by ARB on December 12, 2007 at the South Orange Performing Arts Center.
State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.
The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.
Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.
NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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